Dr. Colm Henry:

I thank the Deputy for his kind comments and I will return the acknowledgement of his own role in asking those difficult questions which are essential in any functioning democracy, even through a crisis such as Covid-19. The seniority of the presence here reflects the priority this has for clinicians of the HSE. It is a serious issue. The Deputy referenced the Covid-19 pandemic. We had a luxury for two years, even though it was a pandemic, in diagnostic tunnel vision in a sense, of looking for one condition only and testing the population multiple times for one condition. We know what has happened here and in other countries. The price of that was a reduced awareness of the impact of other serious conditions such as cancer and, of course, sepsis. We wish to rebalance and correct that and do better than we are now, notwithstanding the improvements this programme has brought over the past few years and we wish to address the expectation of the Hughes family here in making this a more responsive system.

The Deputy referenced money. The biggest bang for buck here, not just in monetary terms, but in impact, is on healthcare professionals, because they are the first point of contact for somebody who is feeling unwell. If they do not have a heightened sense of awareness, even if it is an unusual condition for them, the chance for early intervention is much reduced. It is often said that any consultation is a meeting of two experts, that is, the patient and the healthcare practitioners. Thus, the Deputy's comments about an informed and educated public asking whether this sepsis is possible is something we would certainly welcome, as we do with the stroke programme.

I ask Dr. Healy or Dr. O'Dwyer to comment on how we match the international evidence and the cost-effectiveness of media campaigns, which we are not at all excluding.

What we want is something that is sustainable and gets a singular message across. It should not trip us up with other messages we are giving out and should highlight the impact of a time-critical condition over a period.